Donald Trump rose to political prominence by pushing a fake story that President Obama wasn’t born in the USA.

He rose up in the public consciousness via a fake “reality TV” show that was produced to make him look like a much more competent and successful businessman than he’s ever been.

His career, it has now been made clear, was launched with hundreds of millions of dollars from his father and fake but influential claims about his net worth (because of fake claims about his stake in his daddy’s company). Even the names of the PR people talking to reporters were fake (it was Trump himself, not the false identities he used).

Called out for repeated lies about his TV show’s ratings on one morning show, Trump told the host on the commercial break that you just tell people whatever you want them to believe and they’ll believe it.

The career con man lied about worker pay, business success (or lack thereof), charitable donations, how his foundation was using its money, what his “university” offered, and countless other things.

He has also surely shattered any previous records for number of lies while in the White House.

Trump claims so many things that are polar opposite of reality, that are pure projections on other people of the faults he suffers from, and that are counter to what you can see and hear with your own eyes and ear, that if you somehow fall into his messaging bubble and buy it, your understanding of what has happened and what is happening is almost completely detached from reality.

The alternative reality his supporters live in is so absurd, so counter to obvious evidence, that it actually blows my mind that people can buy into it and not fall out of the popping bubble any time it collides with hard physical reality.

It’s also an interesting lesson in how effective messaging can work, even in the most absurd examples.

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr